Restaurants as playgrounds

Parent Cafe
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<p>I have to admit that I’d describe my childrearing style as consensual. To be clear, until this thread inspired me to google an article a few minutes ago, I had never read anything associated with “consensual parenting”, but as someone raised with a lot of Quaker influences, the idea of looking for consensus guides a lot of my thinking, both at home, and in my classroom. </p>

<p>To me, parenting by consensus means that we think about everybody’s needs and everybody’s wants when we decide, together, what to do. </p>

<p>I see a fair number of parents who seem to parent in one of 3 ways:</p>

<p>1) Parent is the dictator. Their decision always wins, because they’re bigger and they have more power.</p>

<p>2) Child is the dictator. Their decision always wins, because the child is viewed as too fragile or too precious or something . . . </p>

<p>3) Control goes back and forth between parent and child, with lots of power struggles.</p>

<p>Consensual parenting, as I practice it, is based on the idea that there are solutions that can take into account both people’s needs, wants, and feelings. Now, to be clear, consensus doesn’t mean that everyone is always happy, it just means that both sides are comfortable with the outcome. It certainly doesn’t mean that one side is always happy at the expense of the other. </p>

<p>So, I might say to my child “We need to go to the dentist today so I can get my teeth clean.”, and my child might say “I don’t want to go to the dentist. The dentist is boring.” and I’d say “That’s true, it can be boring at the dentist, but I need to get my teeth cleaned and the dentist is planning to see me at 10:30. What can we do to solve this problem?” and together we’d come up with a solution like: I could bring some books to read to him in the waiting room, or we could stop at the park on the way home, or he could bring his Leapster handheld game. To me those are compromises, mutual agreements that we could live with. It’s also important to note that the outcome (me and my child at the dentist, with a couple of books and a Leapster) is pretty much the same outcome that parent 1 might have come to (Coming to the dentist is not a choice, now go get your Leapster and wait in the car) or parent 2 might have come to (Now darling, how about if I read you a story at the dentist? 2 stories? 3? How about 3 stories and a trip to the park, you like the park, don’t you?), it’s just the road we traveled to get there that was different. </p>

<p>As far as if my child outright refused? Well, of course that could happen, but to be honest it didn’t happen very often. If it did (or does, since I still parent this way), the first thing I’d do is look into why. Maybe there’s an underlying reason that we can solve. In the end, though, going to the dentist is a need, and not being bored is a want, and we take care of needs first, so we’d go. On the other hand, if he woke up in the morning and just didn’t feel like going to the grocery store as I planned, we might have worked out a solution where we went to the park instead and then stopped for groceries on the way home. </p>

<p>As far as restaurants? My kid knew, from a very early age, that just like he needed to show consideration for my needs and wants and feelings, he should do the same for other people around him. If we went somewhere moderately fancy he’d know that adults were there because they wanted a certain kind of environment, and that he needed to respect their feelings. If I felt like he was getting a little rambunctious, I’d whisper to him and point out people’s faces, either “I don’t think that lady liked it when your voice got loud. I think she was hoping for a quiet evening, what can you do instead of talking loudly, would you like me to tell you a story, or get the crayons out of my purse?” or “I can tell you want to move your body, but I’m worried that if you bounce the booth will move and it will bother the nice people behind us. Would you like to go for a little walk while we wait for our food to arrive?”</p>

<p>I know someone reading this is now thinking “well that’s fine for CuriousKid, but it never would have worked for my kid”, to which I’ll say perhaps that’s true. Perhaps how you parent wouldn’t have for CK either. I am a pretty pragmatic person. I suspect that if what I was doing hadn’t worked, I would have done something else.</p>

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<p>CuriousJane, I can respect where you’re coming from. Parents come up with a variety of tactics and if it’s working for a particular family, more power to them. I’m not of the opinion that my way is the Best Way or the Only Way.</p>

<p>My concern with non-coercive parenting is the fundamental notion that a young child is reasonable. Developmentally they just aren’t “other focused”. A toddler doesn’t care if you need to eat or go to the bathroom or have a migraine.</p>

<p>Look up the definition of narcissist and one of the examples will be Noun: A person between the ages of birth and five.</p>

<p>Don’t get me wrong. I love toddlers! I’m expecting our seventh and have found raising young people to be extremely rewarding.</p>

<p>You sound like the most reasonable of the consensual parents I’ve read about since you differentiate between needs and wants. And as much as possible I do try to talk things out with my children.</p>

<p>I wonder how a child who never just has to do what needs to be done reacts when they are in an environment that simply needs things to be done. Even as adults we sometimes have to do things we don’t want to do.</p>

<p>Hats off to this: “I am a pretty pragmatic person. I suspect that if what I was doing hadn’t worked, I would have done something else.” That is my approach, too.</p>

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<p>So, again, my Quaker roots lead me to point out that if only one person is bending, whether it’s the child or the parent, that’s not consensus. If a child is being raised to think of his needs and wants as the only ones that matters, then that’s not consensus, that’s dictatorship, just turned on it’s head. I completely believe you that there are people who allow their kids to run wild, and call what they’re doing “consensual”, but I think their understanding of the word is wrong.</p>

<p>I’m also not saying that my 18 month old got that mommy has needs, but we talked about it from very early. I can remember telling a very small baby “I know you want me to hold you, and you know I love to hold you but right now I have to pee”.</p>

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<p>I feel like I just found a sane people support group! I see parents all the time with toddlers standing in carts or allowed to run the aisles in stores. I want to ask the parents why they aren’t teaching these kids from the get go to sit, be calm and ride through the store patiently. Same with restaurants it is not cute to let your toddler play peek a boo over the booth.
I have four kids, who were always taught to behave in social situations. When I had one with some delays we only went places we thought she could handle. I once made my two oldest sit in a grocery store aisle with me for a half hour for goofing off. I explained that they had already embarrassed me in that aisle and I wasn’t moving on until I was sure they wouldn’t embarrass me in the next aisle. My sons were horrified as people stared and we sat. It was a great lesson in turning the tables. My proudest moment was exiting a plane with them and having other passenger see us getting off and say, “Wow there were kids on this plane? They were so quite we never noticed”</p>

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<p>I still remember my young kids (grade school or below), scolding other kids because they were playing around with the shopping carts and my S earnestly told them it was dangerous and they shouldn’t be doing it. They were shocked speechless and decided to knock it off (they were at least 5 or more years older than him).</p>

<p>He also scolded teens who tore open a gift at the mall and tossed the wrapping paper on the floor. He told them to pick it up and throw it in the trash can. They were about 10 years older than him at that time. They were shocked into actually doing it and walking away sheepishly.</p>

<p>Our kids loved plane rides because we carefully prepared for them and brought a big bag of things they only got to use when they traveled. We would decline to entertain the kids of other passengers and told them to go back to their seats and parents, but our kids were always fine on planes–flying from age 6 months for 5-6 hours or longer.</p>

<p>I’ve always felt sorry for store personnel who suggest that it is not safe for the kiddies to be dangling off the cart or standing in it while the adults smile and nod. We look at each other and shrug our shoulders.</p>

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<p>I was relieved to see others are talking about personal experiences, was feeling like I didn’t stay on topic sharing about my brother’s family. I genuinely like the examples of your exchanges with your son CuriousJane, and I identify with it stylistically and also admire it. I’m not sure I see only the three types of parenting you laid out, and then consensual…To me parenting needs to be fluid, we aren’t always able to stick with one approach, particularly since each child also needs their own approach. We each have our own experiences, which you acknowledged of course. </p>

<p>From the start of mothering and nursing, it seemed natural to me for things to be child led, when my infant was hungry I simply responded happily. I liked the simplicity of that, and how lovely it all was. That seemed to create a nice path which I followed through childhood, that they knew what they needed, and I would respond as best I could. I always felt it was important to respect my childrens’ feelings and needs, their experience of things, and talk about choices and daily experiences. </p>

<p>I also think it’s important to balance their needs with ours, and I found there often wasn’t the time or energy to discuss and negotiate and that’s okay too. Perhaps with one child, but for me with three kids, it became a more challenging picture. I recall trying to decide where to go out to dinner and each had their preference, so we could keep discussing while everyone got hungrier/crankier or I could make the call. It encouraged them to team up the next time. :wink: I have been a single parent for years now, which propelled me to juggle many things on my own, including getting out of the house with three kids to three schools and me to my office, so I became very comfortable managing all that as simply as possible, like when the clock says 8:00 we are out the door, not because I said so, simply because that was how our life worked, and too many things depended on that for any wiggle room. They got that, as I’m sure all of our kids do and it flowed. </p>

<p>Also since we’re humans, while I may aspire to be a Zen-like mother that I can be when I’m at my best, I also sometimes feel impatient, frustrated, bored etc. and well, just need to move things forward. Never in an authoritarian or power struggly way, simply as the human with more experience and more responsibility to keep it all together. It seemed to make them feel secure and help them respect me too.</p>

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<p>Lindz,</p>

<p>I tried really hard to phrase that to make it clear that while I think those 3 styles aren’t uncommon they certainly aren’t the only ways to parent, but clearly I failed. I just listed them to show that I think that a dynamic in which the child is always on top isn’t any more consensual than one in which the adult is. You can’t have consensus unless both parties have equal voice, and both parties give and take to some degree.</p>

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<p>I wasn’t at all criticizing what you said, simply expressing my viewpoint that parenting is a fluid process…can’t always be consensual. the three parenting styles you did note sounded black and white, so I was pointing out that there is much gray in parenting, which I of course realize you know. </p>

<p>the lack of tone and facial expression means we lose much of what we are thinking/feeling in our posts. I’m sure we’d have enjoyed many a park bench with our kids in the sandbox, exploring these ideas…</p>

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<p>Part of the reason we see more public behavior problems these days (my opinion) is the pace and intensity of family life. Both parents work, one parent hits the grocery store during the commute home, often with tired kid, just picked up from day care, in tow. Not the ideal time for either the parent or the small child to hold themselves together in public. </p>

<p>Families are more pulled, more stretched in different directions, generally have less slow moving time together.</p>

<p>People are doing the best they can to cobble together family time, so families rush to fit in a restaurant visit at a time when, perhaps, everyone is not well rested or in a restaurant-y mood.</p>

<p>Back when we were kids, parents felt much less guilt about leaving the kids at home with a sitter. And if the whole family went out to eat together it was an event. We were dressed in “behave yourself” clothes. (As opposed to the same clothes the kids wore all day at the park.) </p>

<p>If my mother had errands to run during the day we NEVER accompanied her. We played at someone else’s house, or any one of a number of older neighborhood women would stay with us. She would have died before she would have brought us with her during an appointment of any kind. </p>

<p>But these days, the neighborhood grocery stores, Target, etc., are pretty empty during the day. In double income families, running errands during the work day without kids just doesn’t happen. So errands and restaurant visits get squeezed and condensed into the time available after work and on weekends, when little kids and parents aren’t necessarily at their best.</p>

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<p>The training ground for proper restaurant behavior is the kitchen table. Just judging by our town, no one ever eats together as a family. Dinner is a quick McD in the car, on the way to gymnastics, dance, track, boy scouts, baseball, etc. Dad and Mom may work till the kids are already in bed. When I see kids who don’t behave in restaurants. my first thought is to wonder what they’re like at home. We were very lucky in that my husband was home by 6:30 pm and we were able to have real dinner, with conversation and all. Very Ozzie and Harriet. Some people are not as lucky, and besides, the world has changed, not necessarily for the better, in the 25 years since my kids were babies.
The other problem is that parents feel that they are entitled to continue thier “eating-out” life exactly as before. Once you have children, your entire social life changes. Granted, you have to pick your restaurants, but for us, it was more about what would have the food for our one picky eater. Don’t even get me started about the $24 grilled cheese (Not on the menu) at a place that became a one-time visit. But because she enjoyed it, it was
worth it.</p>

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<p>I think all good parents practice this style - some of the time, but not all of the time. I just don’t believe it’s healthy for children to be consulted as an equal over every little thing or that they need to be totally “comfortable” with every decision we make as parents before cooperating. I know children who have been raised this way, right down to the 20 minute conversations with a 2 year old about why they should feel “comfortable” to get into their car seat. IMO it can result in a very narcissistic view of the world.</p>

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<p>While I understand the above post from east coast, I still think it comes down to how the kids are raised. If it’s ok to act out our not okay to act out. I’m from a double income family… I went grocery shopping each week with my mom and in tow to all the stores as well. You can bet I would have been in trouble if I acted the way some of todays kids do.</p>

<p>I also used to work at a grocery store and I can tell you first hand that my store was not like the stores today. Kids weren’t screaming, twirling, making a mess, etc. sure every once and awhile you had a kid begging for a toy by the checkout… But generally speaking it was much different then today. I try to do all my shopping late at night or during the day because I gave no patience in stores anymore.</p>

<p>I had a great sitter as a kid who is still a family friend today. She had us potty trained before we were two. She took us out to a restaurant for breakfast once a week. We all knew how to behave in public. We had a sitter every day during work but never beyond that. We did occasionally spend a night at grand parents.</p>

<p>I don’t know if it’s the cell phone generation kids or what. I can’t really attest it to video games… I had a Game boy as a kid too… </p>

<p>Sent from my DROID BIONIC using CC</p>

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<p>I think that my preference is consensual parenting. I love to explain to my kids. My husband gets annoyed, “stop pleading with the kids, they are the kids, you are the parent, just tell them what you want”. </p>

<p>I’m not sure what is the right way to parent.</p>

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<p>I don’t necessarily think there is one right way… But letting your kids do whatever they want where ever want is probably the wrong way. ;)</p>

<p>Sent from my DROID BIONIC using CC</p>

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<p>I don’t think it can be blamed on video games or daycare or anyother one thing, because plenty of kids play video games and have cell phone (or are too young) and still behave. There were kids 25, 35 and 55 years ago whose parents both worked many long hours and had sitters in the form of neighbors and older siblings (my husband was one of them) and still behaved. It’s got to be the parents who model and teach good behavior.</p>

<p>I don’t see this out-of-control, do-whatever-you-want stuff ONLY in restaurants. As above, I see it in grocery stores, in churches, in other public venues too. It’s not just exhausted parents, it’s parents happily engaged with their kids, even as those kids do whatever they want. So I think it all comes down to parents who think this is ok. </p>

<p>Are there times when even perfect angles act up? Of course. But parents who set limits know what to do about it. Limits aren’t cruel or damage kids. I think it’s the opposite that’s true-NO limits are what cause the most behavior problems.</p>

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<p>Pretty much everything I have read about child development says that kids are actually very unhappy when they have no consistent limits. They do NOT want to be in charge, despite their behavior to the contrary. </p>

<p>You can love your child very much and convey that love to your children all the while maintaining an authoritative and guiding presence (note authoritative rather than authoritarian). This is actually quite reassuring to young children.</p>

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<p>^^ yes! </p>

<p>And it is possible to set limits with a very quiet, kind but firm tone. Quite a few families I know could use lessons from a kid whisperer.</p>

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<p>^^^ I totally agree with this as well. I’d just add that it goes without saying that limits can and do change with the age and maturity of the child. It’s good to let even young children make some age appropriate decisions, and to let unimportant things slide. And if the child is old enough to understand then a brief conversation about the reasons for going somewhere or doing something they don’t want to do can be appropriate, too.</p>

<p>But I do think there is a slippery slope when it comes to offering constant rewards for good behavior whether you call it compromise, negotiation or bribery. Children also need learn to do things because they are the right thing to do, not because there is something in it for them.</p>

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<p>a big vote here for family dinners. aimed for family dinners on 5 nites out of 7, definitely a routine that provides family togetherness, sharing our days, and pitching in to cook/serve/cleanup. I am surprised at how many families with young kids never have family dinners, think it’s too much work, and give kids their meals in front of TVs. I know a family where they do not even have a kitchen/dining table in the home</p>

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<p>Quite a few of my renters have not had a kitchen table. It always gets me. How can you not have a kitchen table? H never let the kids eat anywhere except the kitchen. No wonders so many children have no table manners. Gheeeesh. Will never get this.</p>